Intermittently, golf is told it must cast off its middle age spread and comfy
Pringles and embrace 'yoof'.

It needs colourful kids who look the part as well as play the part to make the game seem cool for the next generation, the urgent theory goes.

So if Rickie Fowler had not come along for an American game still reeling at Tiger Woods's tumble from his pedestal, he would probably have had to be invented. He scrubs up like a cross between Leo DiCaprio and Zac Ephron, is attired so outrageously in Oklahoma State orange that he can make Ian Poulter look like your fuddy duddy grandad, and he attacks a golf course as if there is no tomorrow, with feel and imagination. Vive la difference!

On Tuesday, waterproofs conspired to make Fowler look rather less distinctive than of tangerine legend but even on this relentlessly dreary morning, his star quality, partnering Jim Furyk and playing against Tiger Woods, may have reminded US Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin why he had gone with a "gut feeling" to make the 21-year-old Californian dude his final wild-card selection.

Of course, it is a gamble, picking a man who, along with Jeff Overton, is the only one here never to have won a professional tournament, but Pavin recognises the boy as being just that bit different, on and off the course.

In Valhalla, the US hit the jackpot, discovering in Hunter Mahan and good ol' boys JB Holmes and "galloping major" Boo Weekley rookies who transformed the dynamic of the team. Now Pavin trusts in a lad who makes the generation gap in his 2010 class seem like a chasm. Reminded that the Americans have not won on European soil for 17 years, Bubba Watson, another rookie, grinned: "Seventeen? Is Rickie that old?"

Bouncing in from the rain at 8am yesterday as if he was checking into the set of High School Musical, our hero introduced himself charmingly to his British audience. Just like Poulter, he is an easy target for those who, like one US writer, noted his fashion sense "could lead you to loathing", yet he has a very disarming manner.

Was he confident or plain cocky? "I'd go on the confident side," he said. "I don't like to talk about myself or build myself up. Being confident is just staying humble, quiet and collected." As for his style? "Very old school. But I guess very new school with the stuff that I usually wear. And I like to play fast. It's just step up and go."

Fowler seems like the product of golf colliding with Disney, a player for the PlayStation generation. Or, as his own website puts it: "Edgy, non-traditional, yet completely low-key and approachable. With his larger than life performances – and belt-buckles – Rickie Fowler is definitely someone to catch if you can." Gulp. That's some self-billing but then he has been a bit of a prodigy since his Japanese grandfather bought him a kid's club when he was three. Within a year, he was playing in tournaments. And winning.

His golfing progress, though, went hand in hand with his love of riding dirt bikes in competition, like his father, Rod, a national motocross star. Only when he broke three bones in a foot in an accident did he decide at 15 to settle on life in the slower lane.

Success has been relentless. The reason surely why Pavin has acted on his instinct is that Fowler has made a habit of succeeding almost instantly with every fresh challenge. Like three years ago on his first visit here when, as the youngest in America's Walker Cup team, he won three of his four games in the US victory at Royal County Down.

Fowler says he cannot quite believe he is on Ryder Cup duty so soon after leaving college – "I was planning on a little bit of a longer process but it's all worked out well and this is right where I want to be" – and indeed there were times when talking about playing alongside Woods yesterday that he still sounded quite star-struck.

Not that he needs to be; the only previous time he had met Woods was when they were shooting a commercial together earlier this year to promote a video game. Like his mate McIlroy, he is already seen by advertisers as baby-faced gold.

The one with the Hollywood looks and the one from Holywood get along famously and, never mind Woods and McIlroy wanting a crack at each other, the two bucks would not mind going head to head, too.

Fowler remembered how partisan the crowds were when he stepped into McIlroy's manor at County Down. He has convinced himself that here he will need to multiply the intimidation factor by 30. He should thank his lucky stars; it would have been 100 if he had been wearing orange.